The Historical City of Ayuthaya

No tour of Thailand would be complete without a visit to the historical city of Ayuthaya.  Ayuthaya has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was the capital of  Siam.  Ayuthaya is located just north of Bangkok, so we took the train directly from Khao Yai to Ayuthaya and made Ayuthaya a day trip on our way back to Bangkok. Unfortunately, we had no idea how crowded this train would be, leading the two of us to spend the 3 hour train ride standing in between two of the train compartments.  Although this was not ideal, the experience was unforgettable - a kind Thai man let me stack our backpacks on his belongings, and vendors pushed their way through the crowded compartments every couple minutes selling water, beer, chicken skewers, fruit, corn, and homemade snacks.  The view from the train was also incredible - the forested mountains of central Thailand gave way to rice fields as made our way to Ayuthaya.

View from the train

After we finally arrived in Ayuthaya, we avoided all of the aggressive tuk tuk drivers, and headed out on our own, determined that being young and healthy, and with the help of a guide printed out from the internet, we would be able to walk and bike our way around Ayuthaya without a guide... this didn't exactly work out as planned, as we couldn't find the ferry (we later found it and realized this wasn't really our fault - there were ZERO signs!) which led to a looong, hot walk until we found bicycles to rent...once again, this was just another lesson learned: no matter how easy everyone makes it sound online, always get a map of your location ahead of time so there is no possibility for error!

It took a little more work than expected, but we eventually found our bikes and headed out!

After successfully renting bicycles and getting a great map of Ayuthaya, we marked all of the temples we wanted to go see and headed out - and were immediately rewarded at the first temple we visited, Wat Phra Mahathat, home of one of the most impressive sights we've ever seen: a tree growing around a Buddha head.

We enjoyed wandering around the seemingly endless rows of headless Buddhas

Leaning prang of Ayuthaya

The main chedi

Right across the street from Wat Phra Mahathat, the next temple we visited was Wat Ratchaburana.  This temple recently had one of its large prangs restored,  and also featured a lot of beautiful stone carvings.  As you can see, the impact of flooding was evident at this temple, although we are very lucky that the floodwaters are nowhere near where they were last year.

In the guide we found online for Ayuthaya, we'd noticed that the information about this temple included something about a "mysterious staircase".  As a result, even after spending close to an hour exploring the temple, we refused to leave until we found this mysterious staircase. Luckily, we soon realized that we could climb up the temple and actually enter the main chedi (we actually weren't 100% sure this was allowed, but given that there were no signs to the contrary, we decided to try it!).  Once in the chedi, the mysterious staircase immediately presented itself, and we headed down to explore and were greatly rewarded.  At the bottom of the staircase was a small room...more like a box... with original paintings from the 15th century on the walls.  These were absolutely amazing to behold, and it was hard to believe that we were looking at something that ancient.

People leave 10 baht coins as an offering

360 degree view

After the excitement of the last temple, we decided to venture to one that was a little further away from the rest- Wat Chaiwatthanaram.  This wat was the largest that we saw, and the most intact - truly a majestic sight to behold.  Although we couldn't get too close due to flood damage, we still enjoyed walking around the outside and taking pictures.

After a few turnarounds looking for another temple (due to flood damage the map we had wasn't that inaccurate and led us astray!), we decided to call it a day and head back to the city center.  On the way, we stopped by Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the largest temple in Ayuthaya.  This temple used to hold a Buddha covered with 340 kg of gold - but the Burmese set fire to the Buddha to melt the gold and destroyed the temple in the process!  The wat was restored though, and looked a lot more modern than the others we visited.

Due to time constraints, we had only planned for Ayuthaya to be a day trip - but especially due to our love for temples - we easily could have spent at least two full days exploring this city.  We love the temple ruins in Chiang Saen, and the temple ruins in Ayuthaya are on an even grander scale than those!  This is one place that, time permitting, we will definitely return to so that we can explore even more of the historical gems in this city.

We also viewed Ayuthaya as a learning experience - although, isn't every travel experience a learning experience?  We made some good choices - renting a bicycle instead of a tuk tuk, and printing out information instead of paying for a guide.  We also made some bad choices - not getting a map of Ayuthaya beforehand, and trying to get to temples far far away instead of just sticking to the ones that were close together.  Luckily though, despite the heat and the exhaustion, we stuck it out together and stayed positive, and, as you can see from these pictures, we were rewarded by seeing some beautiful sights.

At sunset, we found the ferry - it was a lot easier when there were signs for it on the other side of the river - and headed back to the train station.  We even lucked out on the way back to Bangkok, as this 2 hour train ride was a lot less crowded, and we were able to have our own seats the entire way back.

Much nicer than standing between two compartments!